Tim Burchett Abruptly Cut Off During CNN Interview

CNN’s Pam Brown terminated a testy interview with Rep. Tim Burchett on Tuesday after the Tennessee Republican accused the network of not investigating excess government spending and claimed its “ratings are in the tank.”

The exchange followed a heated discussion over what level of access Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) should be allowed to Internal Revenue Service (IRS) databases.

Newsweek contacted Rep. Burchett and CNN for comment on Wednesday, via email and online inquiry form respectively, outside regular office hours.

Why It Matters

Earlier this week The Washington Post reported DOGE was seeking access to the IRS’s integrated data retrieval system, which contains the personal financial information of millions of Americans. On Monday, White House deputy chief-of-policy Stephen Miller said the agency would have access to IRS records at a “programmatic level.”

Separately on Friday 14 a federal judge extended a temporary ban prohibiting DOGE employees from accessing Treasury Department systems which handle trillions of dollars of payments.

Since its creation shortly after President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 DOGE, which was created to combat what the new administration perceives to be government waste, has been locked in a series of battles over access to federal government data.

What To Know

During Brown’s interview with Burchett, who sits on the influential House oversight committee, the CNN anchor asked: “What information do you actually have on what DOGE is doing with that data? What are your questions?”

Burchett immediately came to Musk’s defense, commenting: “Well first of all Elon Musk when he owned PayPal they never had a breach of security. IRS is a nightmare ma’am you have folks who still haven’t gone back to work three, four years after COVID. As a United States congressman I can write a letter of concern over a constituent of mine having a problem with the IRS and it takes up to six months for me to get a response.”

Brown responded “look I’m not saying there’s no problem with government agencies or the IRS” at which point Burchett cut in commenting: “Hold on, you asked me a question, you asked me a question.”

The CNN anchor and Republican congressman repeatedly talked over each other as the interview progressed, with Brown later asking: “There are fair questions to ask congressman about these unelected people going in and having access to private Americans.”

She later said some DOGE employees are “young staffers who we know nothing about really.”

Burchett replied that IRS employees are also unelected, then pointed to two rifles situated behind him. He said: “I want you to look at these guns behind me. These are Japanese rifles, guess what my Dad was 20, 21 years old when he killed the people that carried [them] y’all don’t question.”

The discussion continued with Brown commenting “nobody’s disagreeing there’s bloat” in the government, to which Burchett replied: “Then why are y’all not exposing it? Have y’all even talked about Mozambique, we sent them 10 million dollars for circumcisions.”

On Monday Breitbart reported that DOGE had stopped a payment of $10 million that was to go to “voluntary medical male circumcisions” in Mozambique.

Brown responded “we’ve been covering at length where the money is going to” after which Burchett said: “No you haven’t all y’all do is run down Elon Musk and Donald Trump and you continuously do this and that’s why your ratings are in the tank ma’am.”

At this point Brown terminated the interview, commenting: “All right Congressman Tim Burchett we’re going to leave it there. I do appreciate your time.”

What People Are Saying

During the CNN interview, referring to DOGE, Brown said: “Do you not have questions about what they’re doing with the data, why they want access to private tax information from Americans? Do you not have those questions as a member of the oversight committee?”

Burchett replied: “The only reason you’d have questions is if you’re doing something crooked and your going to see a lot of congressmen with red faces when they follow this paper trail back to members of Congress…that’s the bottom line. Where were they fussing the last 3,4, years? Different groups have access, hundreds of different people have access to this that are nowhere in the scope of what needs to be, and yet nobody raised one peep about it. Now Elon Musk gets a hold of it and he’s going to make some changes that need to be made and your pitching a fit.”

What Happens Next

The battle over DOGE access to federal government data is likely to continue as Musk continues with his mission to slash government spending. Ultimately it may be the courts that decide how much confidential data access DOGE is allowed.